The Islamic State (Isis) has published a video showing militants destroying ancient artefacts in a Mosul museum with sledgehammer and pickaxes.

IS fighters are seen unveiling old statues in the Ninawa museum dating back to the Assyrian empire and then dragging them down to the ground, where they fall into pieces.

Then, they are depicted pounding 3,000-year-old sculptures with hammers until they are completely shattered. Tens of militants are seen using ladders, hammers and drills to destroy every statue in the museum, including a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity dating back to the 9th century BC.

"These ruins that are behind me, they are idols and statues that people in the past used to worship instead of Allah," an IS militant says at some point, with an immense horse-like figure in the background.

"The Prophet Mohammed took down idols with his bare hands when he went into Mecca. We were ordered by our prophet to take down idols and destroy them, and the companions of the prophet did this after this time, when they conquered countries."

"When God orders us to remove and destroy them, it becomes easy for us and we don't care even if they cost millions of dollars," he continues.

The video, dated February 2015 from Mosul, comes after Mosul's public library director Ghanim al-Ta'an told The Fiscal Times that IS members burned the city public library, which housed more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts.

"IS militants bombed the Mosul Public Library. they used improvised explosive devices," he said.

A history professor at University of Mosul told AP that Islamists began destroying the library earlier this month. Another report said 2,000 books were seen being loaded into pickup tracks.

Abraham and Mohammad destroyed pagan idols that were being worshipped at the time. Vandalizing cultural artifacts sitting a museum that haven't had any religious use for thousands of years isn't the same thing.